Monday, 8 May 2017

Synchronicities

I blogged about battlefield scenes in Poul Anderson's and SM Stirling's works, then turned to Stieg Larsson for a break from blogging. However, the first page of Larsson's Volume III is a discussion of women at war, directly relevant to Stirling. Further, Larsson explicitly refers to female warriors, Amazons. Coincidentally, the Wonder Woman film, about an Amazon, is about to be released.

Thus, synchronicity continues to operate or the gods want me to continue blogging. Many chance events occur as if the gods wanted a specific outcome. However, I will continue to regard the gods as a story that we tell ourselves until such time as these imagined beings begin to communicate more openly. Meanwhile, it is sometimes easy for readers of imaginative fiction to discern how the writers can gather material for stories from everyday experiences. Too much coincidence becomes unacceptable in fiction.

Anderson's Time Patrol series had progressed from time travellers' effects on history to chaos' effects on the timeline and synchronicity had also been mentioned. Maybe, if there had been further installments, this third concept could have been developed further. There is already some relevant dialogue. Keith Denison wonders whether his two experiences in divergent timelines were a coincidence. He has heard about "'...quantum probability fields, temporal nexuses.'" (The Shield Of Time, Part Six, 18,244 B.C., p. 362) Everard confirms that there is a body of theory on this issue.

3 comments:

The thing about the Amazons which I think we should keep in mind is that they were myths, legends, even, if I may say so, tall stories. I think the Greeks told such stories BECAUSE a nation of women warriors was so VERY implausible.

As for God (sorry, not gods) making Himself more openly known, I would argue that the life, Passion, and Resurrection of Christ could hardly be a more OPEN revelation of God to the world. And, we have discussed how mysteries like the Shroud of Turin does seem to at least indicate SOMETHING happened with Christ's body.

Hmmm, I had thought Anderson's Time Patrol stories to already have covered most possible bases. But, yes, issues like chaos and synchronicity could have been developed further.

Well, a nation of Amazons was; but the Sarmatians (on whom the legends were probably based) did have a fair number of women warriors, judging from the archaeological evidence. (Many female skeletons buried with weapons, and the bones showing characteristic healed injuries from battle wounds. Among others, http://archive.archaeology.org/9701/abstracts/sarmatians.html

The army of 19th-century Dahomey also had an all-female brigade several thousand strong.

Fighting has always been a -predominantly- male occupation, but there are quite numerous exceptions.

I grant there were exceptions, such as the Sarmatian women warriors and the 19th century Dahomey women soldiers. But so few enough that it was the exceptions which stood out.

I simply don't believe it will be PRACTICAL for there to be MANY women soldiers. I argued elsewhere that most women are simply not STRONG enough to be truly satisfactory soldiers. Can a young woman who is probably not much over five feet in height and barely over 100 pounds march 15 or 20 miles a day with an 80 or 90 pounds back pack, then help in erecting a temporary fortified camp, or then FIGHT? And David Birr has argued that a low technology society would not PERMIT so many women of childbearing age to be risking their lives in war. Because they would be far more urgently needed for child bearing.

I've found only your Draka females (it's hard to think of them as even human) to make plausible soldiers. Because they studied, practiced, drilled, had special diets, etc., from about age seven on wards to enable them to match men in war. Later, as we see in THE STONE DOGS and DRAKON, genetic manipulating was used to enable Draka women to be as strong as men.